Rochester DSM OneLap

Last summer Andre at Pina Motorsports introduced his chromoly rear upper control arms for the 1G AWD and VR-4 platforms.  They feature fully tig welded ends, heim joints, and a grease able ball joint end.   The fine members of  GalantVR4.org took up a collection and purchased a set for the RochesterDSM One Lap team.

Installing them is simple.  Just unbolt the ball joint and give the give the spindle where the joint passes through a couple of good whacks with a hammer to pop them out.  Then just unbolt the adjusters and the olds ones are out.  I made sure to measure the old arms before I took them out of the car so I when I installed the new ones I would at least be in the ballpark with my alignment.

Here you can see the Curtis modified control arms these new ones will be replacing.  These were “boxed in” for strength and they took everything we could throw at them last year.  If the chromoly arms were not donated we would have used these again for sure.

Here is one the new PinaMotorSports fully TIG welded chromoly control arms ready to bolt in.

Here they are installed.

The Galant VR4 platform is a collectors item to those lucky enough to find one.  Every year, Garfield Wright, owner of Tuners Nation puts together a calendar of the best Galant VR4 pictures of the year.   These calendars themselves are in limited edition.

With such a pronounced impact on the Galant VR4 community in 2009, the One Lap VR4 car is proudly taking the May slot, appropriately in time for 2010 One Lap.  Garfield went a little above and beyond this year by inserting some of the calendar dates of the event this year and even putting a map of the 2010 One Lap of America even on the back of the calendar.

The calendars will be in short supply, so if you want to pick one up, I suggest you order one before the masses find out.

Official 2010 Galant VR4 Calendar

I grabbed the car from Tim today, so I could finish up some of the electrical work, before the scheduled work day started tomorrow. It was nice to have the car, as I was able to pay off a few debts by giving some rides in the car.  I was headed out to go grab a spare tire for the trailer, when my mom pulled in the driveway.  My mom helped organize the East Rochester Library staff donations for this trip, so it was nice to be able to take her for a ride around the block.

I made it up to Irondequoit to get the spare tire and stopped in to see the Buehler’s, who live around the corner from where I was headed.  We put the family in the car and did a nice expressway drive around the proverbial block, so they could enjoy the car as well.  Phil and Sherianne had made a private donation to the car, so it was nice to share what all of our hard work had gone into.

It is unusually hot in Rochester today, giving me a glimpse at how painful it is going to be to have a car without air conditioning down south.  It we will need to keep a cooler in the trunk or trailer to be sure we can keep some cold towels on standby.  Sitting still in the car, the temperature is rising.  Rising more than it should at least, meaning we need to be sure to test the radiator fan switch tomorrow.  I also plan on making a length of wire to by pass the temperature sensor to bring with us.

Tomorrow we have one of the last full work days on the car.   While the work list is light compared to our past efforts, there really is no more time left to entertain putting things off.

The Rochester DSM One Lap of America team is proud to announce Street Tuned Motorsports has signed on as an official team sponsor.

Street Tuned Motorsports Inc. specializes in Tuning, Performance Parts and Installation for the 4G63 Turbo Eclipse, Talon, Laser and Evolution. We are also a parts retailer for the popular tuner cars and buy direct with numerous companies.

http://www.streettunedmotorsports.com/

STM is the proud home of the one and only “RICER” Evo VIII. This car has been our face for the past 4 years and our work/tuning ethic with this car has been to: Push the Limits!

The STM Ricer is the “fastest and quickest” stock-block 4g63 Evo VIII on the planet.

It is very important to us to convey how much dedication we have in a tune and maintenance. You can spend tens of thousands of dollars on your car, but if the parts don’t work well together and are not “set up” correctly, you might as well park it and look at it.

STM is not about the numbers that follow a dollar sign, but the numbers that light up at the end of the quarter mile: Results.

If you are looking for a shop that will give you the best bang for your buck and some honest, reliable options, you’ve found it.

STM has donated there time and expertise to dyno tune the One Lap VR4. Just so you know what they can do we rolled in making 244hp and rolled out making 355hp at the limit of our injectors.

We rolled the car into Street Tuned Motorsports yesterday afternoon to put the car on their dyno and to enlist the aid of Emery in getting the car tuned with the ECMLink.  It was a bit of a learning curve for us all, getting to play with the new ECMLink version 3 software.

The car was on the DYNO for 4-5 hours, as Tim and Emery sat in the car and transformed the car from a pile of parts to a unified working machine.  While Tim learned the workings of ECMlink (which I am mildly jealous about), my job became sharing it with the world. We went live with the Ustream feed and were able to share the event with many of our supporters and followers out there.  I did record one video stream to Ustream but the laptop I was using was mildly slow, and soon the record uploads were not working.  I grabbed the video camera and recorded most of the runs from the day.

We still owe a huge thanks to STM for putting us on the dyno and providing us with the tuning time we desperately needed.

The Rochester DSM One Lap of America team is proud to announce that TunersNation.com has signed on to the Rochester DSM One Lap of America Team as an official Race Day Sponsor.

TunersNation.com started out in supplying hard to find parts for the 6g E39A Mitsubishi Galant VR4 for friends in 2000 & finally turning the hobby into a full fledged import go fast business in June 2008 specializing in Mitsubishi High Performance. It is a perfect match for the Rochester One Lap team to represent TunersNation, who continues to support and preserve the Mitsubishi cars we enjoy so much.

Garfield Wright  over at TunersNation.com sent us over an authentic set of JDM hood vents that not only look bad-ass but they are fully functional as well.  They will be keeping the One Lap Galant VR4 temperatures down under the hood while preserving that authentic look to the car.
Be sure to checkout their website at www.TunersNation.com

PH# 954-404-0733
sales@tunersnation.com

The Rochester DSM One Lap Team is proud to announce that the staff at the East Rochester Public Library has gotten together to sponsor the One Lap of America Team as an official Race Day Sponsor.

Stephen’s mom, has worked at the East Rochester Public Library for almost 22 years. While bragging about your children is a natural occurrence with any parent, Sue has gotten everybody on the library staff involved with keeping up with the progress of the team while they have been getting ready for this trip. The enthusiasm has become contagious as the entire staff has stepped up to support the team on this adventure.

Having the support of the staff at the library will mean a lot for the One Lap team. The dedicated staff at the East Rochester Public library has helped us pick out some excellent audio books for the trip, to help us survive the over 3000 mile road trip. For years the library has been a source of research material and historical reference for everything automotive.

Look for updates about the library involvement, throughout this trip and most importantly on May 5th, when they will be sponsoring our full day of events in Florida. The staff has requested that they cover our efforts on Cinco De Mayo, which falls midway on our trip. This will cover our track exposure from Sebring and Gainsville and one of the longest track days we have.

We are proud and thrilled to have all of the staff on board with us for this trip and are excited to be able to share our adventures with everybody tuning in from the East Rochester Public Library.

I have some of the best friends on the planet and am very lucky to have them. Phil and Sherianne, who are more like family than friends posted up a donation to the team last night. It means a lot to have the support of friends, so I thought I would share Phil’s sponsorship thoughts on the car.

I water ski with Phil in the mornings before work, and if we left the paint and vinyl options up to Phil, we would be driving a ski boat down the road. He sent me a picture to emphasis the design thoughts. While the car handles great, we feel that it may not perform so well over water.

The Rochester DSM One Lap of America team is proud to announce that they have partnered with Dr. Robert Eden M.D. and the Children’s Medical Group of Rhode Island as a premier sponsor.

The Children’s Medical Group was launched in 1994 with the mission of providing expert pediatric and adolescent medical care in a university based and affiliated private practice setting.

www.childrensmedicalgroupri.com

The Children’s Medical Group is a specialized group of certified pediatricians, located on the East Side of Providence. Utilizing their affiliations with the Hasbro Children’s Hospital, Women and Infants Hospital of Rhode Island, and Brown University School of Medicine, the Children’s Medical group is able to provide comprehensive and thorough pediatric and adolescent care. 

Founder and Medical Director, Dr. Robert Eden, M.D. has been chosen as one the “Best Doctors in America” and ranks in the top 5% Nationwide.  While Dr. Eden’s passion is delivering the best health care possible, he is also an avid auto enthusiast.  While not practicing medicine, he can be found on road courses throughout the Northeast.

We are not only grateful to have the Children’s Medical Group sponsoring our team, but proud to represent an organization dedicated to keeping our children healthier.

The Rochester DSM One Lap of America team is proud to announce that they have partnered with GalantVR4.org as a premier sponsor of the 2009 team.

 GalantVR4.org is the online community of enthusiasts focused on supporting, maintaining, and preserving the Mitsubishi Galant VR4 model of cars.  This community has become the authority and main resource of information for everything about the Mitsubishi Galant VR4 and we are proud to be able to represent them in this adventure.

 The involvement with GalantVR4.org has been a special one, as it was the efforts of the online community itself that raised the funds for us to make this trip happen.  The outpouring of appreciation, along with the personal and group donations from that community has been nothing short of amazing for our team. 

 While we are excited to have such a backing of community support behind us, we are overwhelmingly proud to represent such a long standing and reputable group on this journey. Over the years we have been able to meet many of the community members who share the same enthusiasm we have for this amazing car.  The collective knowledge of this group, brought together online has amassed to more knowledge than Mitsubishi could have ever predicted. 

It is with great pride that we can represent GalantVR4.org around the country.  Having the support of this community with us in the car has already made this a historical trip for us.  We look forward to meeting many more members along the way and spreading the word about GalantVR4.org to the world.